Dish - DirectTV - Comcast Need to decide (1 Viewer)

[Jason Harbaugh]

I did do a search and read all of the posts that related to this question but most seemed quite old and it seems the providers keep changing on a monthly basis. So I appologize for yet another "which service" thread.

I just moved into a new place. Before all I had was analog cable and OTA HD.

But now I figure it is time to pay for digital cable with HD, or go with a satellite service. From looking at all the packages for everyone I would most likely go with the middle packages, more than the basic, but not every channel in the guide, nor any premiums. I'm also excited to finally get some real HD channels. So far Dish seems to have the most HD, but how is the quality? Hidden costs with satellite? Can I still use my Tivo? I see that everyone offers their own DVR service, but I've added a harddrive to my current Tivo to make it a 50 hour (max quality) DVR so I wouldn't want to lose that.

Last requirement is that I need multiroom. HD could just be for one room, but if it is easy to put it into another without much cost I would do that as well.

I know I'll use Comcast again for broadband internet, just throwing that out there.

Any advice?

 

[RickRO]

Jason.....I have Dish SD nothing HD yet...not in a position to use it yet so why pay for it. I love my Dish I have had contact with their customer service and I am satisfied overall. I have only had one issue with them in regards to billing but that was due to a customer service rep who had her head up her @#$ when she "adjusted" my bill. Over all I love it. My brother-in-law had Dish and they moved into a wooded area and only Direct had a good enough signal. He much prefers Dish over Direct.

I have lots of friends that have either Dish or Direct and it seems that what ever they have they are mostly happy with. I dumped our cable (Comcast) for constantly rising costs, lack of customer service, and less channels for more money than Dish.

I guess that is the long version of saying GO DISH!!!

FWIW if you are going to go with either DSL or Cable look into the package deals from both comcast and the new ATT/SBC Comcast was running a special 99 a month for Highspeed, cable, and VOIP. Still recommend Dish and not sure about the TIVO question.:frowning:

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

Thanks Rick! Dish did seem to be the one I was most leaning towards. Guess I just need to go and call up each place and see what the total package is going to cost, all said and done.

 

[Reginald Trent]

Jason.

Your standalone Tivo is not a good match for DirecTV or Dish and also questionable for cable.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

Well works fine for analog cable now and has the controllers for the cable box. So wouldn't it be able to record anything coming in off the coax or s-video from the cable box?

 

[Reginald Trent]

Sure, it can record analog signals but a standalone degrades the recording from DirecTV and Dish in comparison to the units used by the satellite providers. Their units record the digital bitstream with no loss in picture quality. I don't believe the cable companies equipment is that advanced as of yet.

 

[Robert_J]

It is. The Scientific Atlanta DVR's have dual tuners and will record HD.

First, are you attached to your Tivo? If so, then DirecTV is a good choice. Get the HR10-250 (aka high def DirecTivo). Yes, it's expensive but you could easily sell your current Tivo and to recover most of the cost. It will record all DirecTV channels and OTA HD with the addition of an antenna. The one downside is DirecTV's transition to MPEG4. They are rolling out local HD over satellite and the HR10-250 is not capable of tuning it in. I plan on using mine until they move the national HD channels to MPEG4 and then I will re-evaluate my situation. Most are predicting that will take at least 2 years.

Another Tivo option is to wait about 6-8 months for the Series 3 model. It will be able to record from cable and OTA digital and it has dual tuners. It's cablecard 1 & 2 ready so no cable box is required.

I was a Dish customer for 13 months and never was happy with them. I went back to DirecTV and the DirecTivo and have been happy there for the last 4 years. I even tried cable for 29 days of a free 30 day trial. I HATED the user interface on their cable box.

-Robert

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

These kind of things are never easy are they? :frowning:

I do love my tivo, but if I must, I can sell it and go with one for the newer services since I'm only month to month on Tivo. And I knew that all I would get was analog recordings which wasn't that big of a deal for now.

Got some phone calls to make.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

Well, I ended up going with Comcast with their motorola 6412 HD-DVR. They are supposed to be upgrading to a new Tivo model soon and they said I could swap without any problems.

After talking with the managers of the apt complex, satellite was going to be a bitch since they are remodeling all of the outsides of the buildings and you can't mount a dish on the building anyway.

Hopefully I made the right decision. At least I can cancel it at anytime if something better comes along or I don't like it at all. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

Got it installed yesterday. The HD looks pretty good. The local stations look just as good through cable as they did when I picked up the few that I could OTA. HBO-HD is looking good, and OnDemand is something I might actually use.

I'm up in the air about the Motorola 6412. It will take some getting used to, as it isn't as userfriendly as Tivo. The interface is just something that Tivo has really nailed. Having two tuners is great though and being able to record both.

I was going to sell my tivo, but I think I might just hang on to it and use it up in my bedroom with just the analog channels. Have to determain if that extra $13/mo is worth it.

 

[Teddy TD]

Good move, I am sure you would have been very unhappy with small dish and the unwatchable SD and overcompressed HD, cable in most areas look much better.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

The only down side is the small selection of HD channels. I get all of my locals of course, and then just Discovery HD, ESPN HD and HBO HD. They don't offer stuff like HDnet or any other strictly HD Movie channel like what Voom had. Hopefully more channels will start to surface.

One thing I'm really liking is that dual tuner DVR. That is going to be such a life saver.

 

[Reginald Trent]

It MAY be a good move as far as SD channel quality is concerned and that's a big maybe. However, no question DirecTV has his cable provider beat on HD content given what he stated regarding their HD programming.

 

[Teddy TD]

Yes though DTV has such poor HD quality, I am sure his cable provider will be adding new HD channels soon, I use a big dish with a 4dtv and I know that dish net and dtv have more HD channels, though once I see the overcompressed washed out HD on small dish I stick with what I have, some people think my SD is HD lol.

 

[Reginald Trent]

Interesting I don't find a huge difference in HD quality from DTV and my local Chicago HD channels.

 

[Teddy TD]

I have had all the small dish systems and I was not to happy with any of them, it has been a while though I do recall dish network HD being a bit better than DTV, and for SD programming Star choice was best for the small dishes, I have seen Rogers cable in downtown Toronto and the HD was pretty good, well when they play HD, most of what I saw was upconverted and looked very poor.

I am using a 52" Toshiba, when I had small dish I had a older 61" Sony, I am sure that If I did hook up a small dish again I would notice the HD lite they broadcast, though I will not be doing so.

Also another good thing about our buddy going with cable is when there is a big rain storm he can still watch TV, that is also another reason why I dumped the small dishes.

 

[Reginald Trent]

Only heavy rain affects my sat reception. However, the picture of my cable got worse/much grainier or went out all together during rain/heavy rain and it took days for the cable provider to restore it. Whereas the sat was out as the heavy rain passed.

 

[toddLE]

Directv is launching a new bird this spring. The future will be here soon.
Todd

 

[Teddy TD]

Cable going out in the rain... geez then the satellite is a good move for you

My big dish never went out in rain for over 20 years, the only thing that cuts me off is very heavy winds that are very rare, we had winds of 110kph a few days ago and I thought my big dish was going to become a flying saucer.

Though the local cabe company had a problem with there big dishes also so I did not feel bad.

 

[Reginald Trent]

So you had a BUD, Big Ugly Dish? I had Primestar before DirecTV and it had much better PQ and it wasn't affected much by rain. Cable was bad and the price was very high for the content provided. However, I see you are in Canada so that may account for some of the differences you speak of.